The present invention generally relates to the technical field of infusing a liquid to a patient or person by means of an infusion pump, e.g. at a hospital. The present invention also relates to infusion of liquid to an animal. More precisely, the present invention relates to an infusion pump system and an infusion pump unit of a universal applicable structure for infusing a liquid into a patient or person.
At hospitals or nurse houses, it is often necessary to supply medication or body liquids to a person by means of an infusion pump in which instance the medication or the body liquids are infused into the body of the patient or person in question through a catheter which is connected to the blood transportation system of the patient or person, e.g. a vein or a venule. The usual technique of supplying medication by means of an infusion system to a patient or person involves the supply of physiologic liquid to the patient which physiologic volume is supplied at a specific rate and which serves as a diluting liquid as the medication is supplied to the physiologic liquid also at a specific rate such as one or two drops of medication per time period varying from a second or a few seconds to several minutes or even hours. The medication of a patient or person may in some applications involve the supply of the medication directly to the patient or person by means of the infusion pump.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,270,478 discloses an infusion pump system allowing the patient or person using the infusion pump system to shift from a position sitting or lying in a bed and move around without necessitating the substitution or shift of the stationary infusion pump to a portable infusion pump as the infusion pump system constitutes a universally applicable or combined portable and stationary infusion pump system.
An advantage of this known system relates to the fact that the infusion pump system may be used in different pumping modes as the infusion pump system includes several programmes for different operational modes and further preferably includes input means for input of different operational programmes. U.S. Pat. No. 6,270,478 is hereby incorporated herein by reference.
The pump actuator of the infusion pump units of this known system comprises a magnetic core and a solenoid coil. This actuator is rather bulky, noisy and heavy and requires a relatively large input of electrical energy.